44- OF FENCES, AND GATES. 



not only beautify a country, and improve the temperature 

 of the atmosphere, but actually increase, perhaps from 2 to 

 5 shillings per acre, the intrinsic value of the land. 



Jn the more improved districts of Scotland, the farmers 

 are not partial to small in closures. They are of opinion, 

 that the fences take up a great deal of land which might be 

 employed to much better purpose ; that they are extreme- 

 ly injurious to the roads along which they maybe carried; 

 that hedges furnish a shelter for birds, which do much mis- 

 chief to the crops of corn, when they are sown or ripen- 

 ing ;* that the want of air is extremely prejudicial to grain 

 in all the stages of its growth, and in particular that near 

 hedges, its quality is greatly inferior ; above all, that when 

 the crops are cut down, the produce of an open field must 

 be ready much sooner for being brought in, than in the 

 case of small inclosures, to which scarcely a breath of air 

 has access. There is certainly much justice in these obser- 

 vations, though one of them might be obviated, were the le- 

 gislature to pass an act, for limiting the height of all hedges 

 to four feet and a half, the height at which hedges are kept 

 by our most skilful agriculturists. 



It is admitted, that inclosures are of some use to stock, 

 as they require, if pastured in the fields, shelter from heat, 

 as well as from cold ; but where the practice of soiling is 

 adopted, sheep is the only species of stock that ought in 

 general to be fed out of doors, and they prefer airy situa- 

 tions. Where there is any old tur or permanent pasture, 



* Others contend, that though sparrows, and other small birds, do 

 harm, yet, on the whole, that they are beneficial, by destroying caterpil- 

 lars and the various sorts of moths, butterflies, and insects, which attack 

 the ears of corn. Small inclosures, however, first nourish these vermin 

 by the warmth and shelter they afford, and then it is proposed that other 

 vermin should be protected to destroy them. 



